1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a voice-enabled user interface for accessing a telephone service system that responds to dial tones. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems for enabling a user, with voice commands, to access and navigate a telephone service system that only recognizes dual tone multi-frequency signals.
2. The Prior State of the Art
Through the years, it has become commonplace to use a telephone, not only to communicate, but also to perform electronic business and financial transactions, and to obtain prerecorded information. It is possible to perform these activities over a telephone, in part, because of the development of corresponding telephone service systems, which are used in virtually every industry and business environment.
Voicemail is perhaps the most common type of telephone service system. Voicemail, like an answering machine, enables an incoming telephone message to be recorded for review by an intended recipient at a later time. However, unlike an answering machine, voicemail can record an incoming message even when a corresponding telephone is xe2x80x9coff the hook.xe2x80x9d Accordingly, voicemail is particularly useful when a person cannot answer an incoming telephone call because that person is already engaged in another telephone call.
The prior art also includes various other types of telephone service systems that facilitate business and financial transactions and enable users to obtain prerecorded information. Essentially, a telephone service system includes any automated system that provides a user with data over a telephone device. Virtually every industry uses a telephone service system of one type or another, even if the telephone service system consists of only a customized telephone directory of available business services or personnel.
Some of the more useful telephone service systems enable users using a telephone device to interact with a business network to transact various activities, such as for performing home banking, purchasing consumer products, receiving customer support, and accessing news, entertainment, financial, and travel information. Some telephone service systems also enable a user to access information that is generated on-the-fly, such as when a telephone service system generates text-to-speech translations of dynamic information.
Telephone service systems are particularly useful from a user""s perspective because they enable a user to access information and to make business and financial transactions when and where it is most convenient for the user. Telephone service systems are useful from a business""s perspective because they enable businesses to hire fewer employees to answer incoming calls and to perform other tasks that can be automated by telephone service systems.
One problem with certain telephone service systems, however, is that they only recognize dual tone multi-frequency signals (xe2x80x9cDTMFxe2x80x9d) signals. A DTMF telephone service system is generally problematic because a user can only use the system by manually pressing the keys on a DTMF telephone keypad. This is a problem because it is easy for a user to inadvertently press an incorrect key, sometimes without realizing it. Pressing an incorrect key may result in an undesirable consequence. For example, by pressing an incorrect key a user may cause the telephone service system to transition from one menu state to an undesired menu state. This may also require a user to return to the prior menu state before a desired selection can be made. This is not only inconvenient, it is a waste of time. By pressing incorrect keys, a user may also cause a telephone service system to perform an act that is not desired. For example, by pressing an incorrect key, a telephone service system may terminate a phone call, call a wrong extension number, or in the case of home banking, transfer an incorrect amount of money between accounts or to a wrong account. It should be appreciated that these examples are given by way of illustration and not limitation.
To overcome the problems that are associated with inadvertently pressing a wrong key, many telephone service systems provide prompts that request a user to confirm certain entries before they are processed. This, however, does not resolve the underlying problem associated with DTMF telephone service systems, namely, requiring a user to enter input by pressing keys on a telephone keypad.
Another problem associated with DTMF telephone service systems is that a user is required to move a handheld telephone back and forth between a position that enables the user to listen to the voicemail system and to a position that allows the user to press keys on the telephone keypad. Having to do this is inconvenient. It can also be dangerous, particularly for a person who is driving a car because it may require that person to take his eyes off the road and his hands off the steering wheel.
To overcome the problems associated with DTMF telephone service systems, the industry has developed telephone service systems that recognize speech so that a user can speak commands and other input without having to press keys on a telephone keypad. There are various methods for performing speech recognition, which are well known in the art. Some examples include spectral analysis, dynamic time warping, neural networks, and recognition by discrete and continuous hidden Markov modeling.
Although speech recognition telephone service systems provide a significant advantage over DTMF telephone service systems, they do not resolve all of the associated problems with the prior art telephone service systems. In particular, a user must still expend the time that is necessary to move systematically through a hierarchy of levels or menu states that are associated with the menu structure of a telephone service system, even when a user already knows what the final menu state will be. For example, from a main menu a user may be required to transition through several xe2x80x9cin betweenxe2x80x9d menu states before finally reaching a final menu state that contains the information that is desired by the user. Many telephone service systems also require a user to return to the main menu before navigating to a second desired menu state. Navigation through a menu hierarchy is particularly time consuming when the hierarchy is complex, or has many menu states. This type of navigation through a telephone service system can also be expensive, particularly when access to the telephone service system requires a user to incur costs associated with long-distance and/or a wireless telephone service plan.
Another problem with speech recognition telephone service systems is that because of variations in speech it is impossible to guarantee that speech recognition software will recognize user input. It is also expensive for businesses to modify existing DTMF telephone service systems to recognize and process audio and vocal data with speech recognition software.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide a method for enabling a user to use an existing DTMF telephone service system by speaking into a telephone device without requiring modification to the DTMF telephone service system. It would also be beneficial to accomplish this while enabling a user to jump to any level or state in a menu hierarchy of a telephone service system without requiring the user to systematically navigate through numerous xe2x80x9cin betweenxe2x80x9d menu states.
The present invention is directed towards a voice-enabled user interface for enabling a user to speak over a telephone device to access data from a telephone service system that is only responsive to dual tone multi-frequency (xe2x80x9cDTMFxe2x80x9d) signals.
In one embodiment, a user accesses the voice-enabled user interface with a telephone device and enters authentication information. The voice-enabled user interface verifies the identity of the user and accesses a telephone service system that has information that is desired by the user, but which is only responsive to DTMF signals. The user responds to prompts generated by the telephone service system by speaking into the telephone device. The voice-enabled user interface translates the user""s input into a DTMF translation that is recognized by the telephone service system. The voice-enabled user interface maps the hierarchy of menu states and corresponding prompts of the telephone service system within a template. During use, the voice-enabled user interface uses the template to determine what menu state the telephone service system is in at all times. A user can jump from one menu state to another menu state by providing input that the voice-enabled user interface associates with a corresponding menu state. The voice-enabled user interface generates output that causes the telephone service system to transition to the menu state that corresponds with the user input. Once the telephone service system is in the appropriate menu state, the voice-enabled user interface transmits a DTMF translation of the user input to the telephone service system so that it can be processed.
One advantage of the present invention is that it enables users using voice commands to access data from existing DTMF telephone service systems without requiring any modification to the existing systems. The present invention also enables users to navigate through a hierarchy of menu states of a telephone service system without requiring the users to enter input to transition through xe2x80x9cin betweenxe2x80x9d menu states. Instead, the invention enables a user to jump over xe2x80x9cin betweenxe2x80x9d menu states, from a first menu state to a second menu state with only a single user input.
These and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by practicing the invention as set forth below.